The Red Knight
by Nagia
Summary: Being a saviour isn't exactly easy. Not when you think being human is beyond your reach. [DoCverse, noncon, NxY, slight VxY, sequelish companion to 'Ink Universe']


**title:** The Red Knight  
**rating:** M  
**wordcount:**   
**day:** june 11: shoot to kill  
**fandom:** ff7: dirge of cerberus  
**pairing:** Vincent/Yuffie, with slight Nero/Yuffie  
**summary:** Being a saviour isn't exactly easy. Not when you think being human is beyond your reach.  
**notes:** Shoot me NOW.

Irony of ironies, the one thing that runs through his mind as he watches is, _Sweeter still is a draught called "love"._ He sees nothing sweet before him, nothing worthy of the heavy romance often applied to it.

There is no grand melodrama. There is only a vicious, brutal fight between one man and one woman. She is trying to claw out his eyes, striking out with her elbows and knees, shaking off his wings and hands.

She is doing well, and yet losing the fight. Considering that she is unarmed and blind, probably deaf, certainly fighting against the very realm to even _move_... If this were any other fight, he would be proud.

But she's losing-- slowly, inexorably, Nero is forcing her backward. He grips her wrists in his wings.

Something inside him howls. Galian, he knows, because Chaos is watching with interest. Evil creature that Chaos is, it _would_ take interest, wouldn't it?

She shakes his hands off, actually biting him. A flick of her wrists, and kunai appear. She drives them up, into Nero's shoulders.

He lets out a laugh.

Vincent feels the muscles on his face twist. The Cerberus leaves its holster. A single shot, that is all that it takes.

But he cannot get a clear shot. Yuffie is in his way. Her struggles are putting her in even greater danger.

He is not in the practice of firing warning shots. But the best way to end this would be to take Nero down himself.

And that doesn't look like it's going to happen.

A warning shot, then. He fires into the "air".

Nero looks up. Yuffie startles, then doubles, triples, quadruples her struggle.

Viciously, she kicks and scratches and bites and knees, until Nero must pause for breath, and then she is scrambling toward him.

"V-Vincent."

And then she tumbles into him, fists clenching in the cloak as toned arms wrap around him. He lets her listen to that dead heart of his as it beats, then 

"Stay here," he says. The Cerberus is now warm to his touch, warm and ready and--

"You want to find brother," Nero tells him. "I don't think I'll let you."

"I don't think you have any choice," Vincent replies, suddenly angrier than this entire ordeal has made him.

"So, this _is_ about brother? Or is this about her?" He can see through the mask that Nero is smiling at him. It is a sick, sad, strange smile, and Vincent wants to shoot his teeth. "I guess I'll have to make you tell my why she'd struggle."

"You don't already know?" His voice borders-- by his standards-- on incredulous.

Is it possible that Nero doesn't understand the prospect of something being against another's will? How is that even possible?

"I don't think _you_ really know." Nero smiles, producing a pair of guns, then fetching another pair with his wings. "I asked her."

There is something very surreal about this, Vincent decides. He is being queried by an enemy and a would-be rapist as to why-- why his victim would struggle. And the son of a bitch is being polite about it, too.

Vincent begins to catalogue possible killing shots. He can name about a dozen off the top of his head, but not all of these will work, he knows. And not all of them will be physically possible in this realm.

Unfortunately, his mental catalogueing efforts are all in vain. Before he can fire the first shot, Galian takes over.

There is a sensation of-- ripping. Distantly, Vincent is aware that every muscle in both arms will be sore. Faintly, he can hear the sounds of tearing flesh. Galian sinks his teeth in, and Vincent feels himself chew. He tastes blood and ink and something else. The tastes do not really reach him, but Galian seems perfectly aware of them, even...

Excited by them.

Galian begins to gnaw on Nero, fully intent on eating him alive, when Vincent brings everything to a stop. He forces Galian to give back the body and immediately spits.

His arms are, indeed, sore, and his mouth is full of blood. Blood and skin are trapped under his fingernails.

But Nero is still alive, if barely. He can tell because the darkness around them hasn't receded.

He looks to Yuffie. She doesn't appear to see him. She doesn't appear to have heard anything, either.

"Yuffie?" He calls.

She does not acknowledge him.

He moves toward her, kneeling to touch her. Normally, he would not do this. But she evidently needs it-- needs it the way she needed it when Shalua went vegetative.

He lifts her, carrying her as he would a child. Or a bride, he realizes, but he pushes that thought away. He shatters the barrier and carries her out of darkness, into the light.

Out of darkness and into light. Out of darkness and into light.

She is mumbling something, now, clutching at him and mumbling. Her words are in Wutaian, her voice is the stereotypical croon. He doesn't know what she is saying.

"Yuffie. Speak Midgarian," he tells her.

She just clutches onto him and murmurs his name-- accented, he realizes, she has replaced the 'v' with a 'b'-- and then further words in a language he does not speak.

Well, does not speak fluently. Not modern Wutaian, nor the Wutaian she grew up with. He might make himself understood to the Godo and the Mighty Gods, but to none of the others.

He does, however, know how to tell her that it's alright. The words fall from his mouth, pathetically difficult.

At the sound of them, she burrows into him, nuzzling and tightening her grip.

He resists the urge to groan, instead hesitantly placing a hand on the back of her head. Slowly, he strokes her hair. "Worry not," he tells her in bad, forty-year-old Wutaian. "All is well now."

She mumbles more words he can't understand. He isn't getting through to her, he realizes, so he resolves to let her stay the way she is. Awkwardly, he rubs her back and shoulders.

It is not until she begins to apologize-- voice trembly and spindly and shakier than a foal taking its first steps-- in shaky and accented Midgarian that he lets go.


End file.
